Pat Rollins: Chasing flags on a fun perch pond

Tuesday

Jan 22, 2013 at 3:15 AM

A few inches of fresh powder covered the ground as my son and I got ready to spend the morning ice fishing on his favorite local pond. Since he was three, Ian has enjoyed chasing flags on the little perch pond and as we wiped the snow from my truck I could tell he was excited to go fishing.

“Do you think we’re gonna catch anything today?” he asked as we loaded our gear in the back of the truck.

“You never know for sure,” I replied. “But I can’t remember a trip when we didn’t catch at least a couple fish on that pond.”

“That’s why I like going there,”he said with a big smile. “We always catch something.”

I made sure the ice auger would start, loaded the portable bob house in the truck and had my son put the pail of live bait in the cab before I grabbed the thermos of hot chocolate from my wife and headed for the pond.

I don’t think it took us fifteen minutes to get there and as I expected, there wasn’t anybody else there.

“Why don’t any other fishermen come here??” my son asked as we packed everything onto the wooden platform of the bob house. “We’ve been coming here for years and I don’t ever remember seeing anyone else. It’s crazy. I mean we always catch fish.”

“I’m sure that other people do ice fish out here, but most ice fishermen fish the bigger lakes,” I explained. “That leaves all these hungry fish out here for us.”

With ice creepers on our feet, we carefully made our way out the middle of a big shallow bay. I watched as my son stopped, got his bearings off some land features and walked out between a big rock and a small pine covered knoll before he declared that he’d found the spot.

“This is it isn’t it?” he asked as he scratched at the ice with his creeper

“You hit it spot on,” I replied as I stopped pulling the portable bob house..

We worked together to get the bob house up and the propane heater running before we began to set out six tip-ups.

“Let’s make a line right across the front of the bob house,” I suggested as I assembled the auger and fired it up.

Ian walked in front of me and marked a line of six holes about twenty feet apart. Then I followed with the auger and bored through the seven inches of ice. After we cleaned out the holes, he grabbed the bucket of tip-ups and followed me as we made short work of getting the six tip-ups out.

The water was barely four feet deep, so I just peeled off an arms length of leader before my son baited each tip-up with a live shiner.

“Let’s go inside and grab some hot chocolate and we’ll wait for something to bite one of the lines,” I said.

Ian unzipped the door to the shanty, unfolded the chairs and let me in. I had just leaned over to grab the thermos when he yelled that we had a bite.

“Dad, look behind you, one of the flags just popped up!” he said as he dashed out the door.

The spool on the tip-up was still turning when we ran over to the hole. I watched as Ian knelt down beside the hole, peeled off his gloves and eased the trap from the ice.

“Is there anything there?” I asked.

He looked up at me with a grin as he eased up on the line.

“Put a little pressure on that line and see if you feel any tension,” I advised.

He gave the line a snap, and began piling line on the ice, and moments later thrust an eight inch long yellow perch onto the ice.

“That’s the way to start things off,” I said slapping him a high five. “Now I’ll bait this one up while you get that other one that just went up behind you!”

“Yaaahooo,” he hollared as he jumped to his feet and took off on a dead run to the other tip-up.

“Is the reel turning?’ I asked.

“Nope,” he replied as he ripped the tip-up from the hole and flung another yellow perch onto the ice. “But he was still there.”

We got both lines back in the water and went back inside the bob house to get warm before another tip-up popped.

I finally got to pour some hot chocolate and we both actually managed to take a couple gulps before Ian saw another flag spring into the air. I quickly unzipped the door and as I reached for my jacket, my son went flying out the door.

“I’ll get it,” my teenager yelled as he slid on his knees right up to the hole.

“You remind me of when you were four years old,” I said with a chuckle as I watched him stare down the hole.

As I walked over to the hole carrying the bait bucket, he threw off his gloves, plucked the trap from the hole and pulled another colorful yellow perch from the hole. While he was baiting the tip-up he pointed behind me and motioned for me to get the flag.

I didn’t run, however, I must confess that my pace quickened as I headed to the tip-up. When I peered down the hole I could see the spool still turning slowly. I reached down and gave the line a little snap and as soon as I felt the tension on the other end, I felt like a kid again too.

A few minutes later we got another bite and that time the fish stripped the bait. In fact, we had several bites that morning that got our baits. However, Ian and I managed to land eighteen good yellow perch and one twenty-two inch long pickerel.

As we were loading the gear back into the truck I caught my son turning to look back out on the ice where we’d been fishing.

He turned back to me with a big smile and said, “chasing tip-ups on these little perch ponds brings out the little kid in all of us.”